Re: [OT] Vietnam and modern combat

--- warbeads@juno.com wrote:

> Local representatives will increase in their
> interference...

Now this might make for an interesting complexity in a
Full Thrust scenario--DSII and SGII are too low-level
to be affected.

The player is representing a squadron commander of a
unit permanantly assigned to Planet X and under the
command of that planet's governor.  Admiral Badenov
from the Home Fleet is sent to conduct operations in
the area of Planet X.  He wants the player to one
thing.	The governor wishes the player to do something
else.  The Admiral is in the player's chain of
command, but after he leaves the sector the player
will revert back to the governor's command.  What do
he do?	

> In other words - IJO - In John's Opinion <grin> you
> posit:

Hey, it's as good a guess as any.  I'm trying to start
a conversation, not pontificate ex cathedra.  Good
Romans don't _do_ that.

> >The NSL have always permitted a certain amount of
> >lattitude in field commanders and so will likely by
> >most comfortable with this situation of loose
> control.
> >
> 
> Comfortable?	I doubt it.  But realistic, yes.

They will do what they always have done:
Strong general staff system to standardize doctrine
and practice across the officer corps, and issuing
'mission directive' that are more concerned with end
results than how one achieves them.

> Given the unlikely fact of this happening, I fall
> back onto the doggerel
> that Democracies and Democratic Republics frequently
> fail to follow through in the short term for 
> consistency but geo-political realities
> will eventually either be worked through or the loss
> of the 'outpost' will be inevitable.

There is an old English tradition of considerable
autonomy for colonial administrators.  One of the Zulu
wars was started on the authority of beauracrat in
Cape Town, IIRC.  And I look at some of the
adventurism in India where the first time Her
Majesty's government would be informed of the
existence of some of the smaller entities would be
when the message informing them of their conquest
arrived.

On the other hand, the US example is a mixed bag--the
tension between the agents of the Federal Government
(Indian Agents and the military) and the local
settlers is instructive.  Usually the locals
consistently pushed for a far more agressive policy
than the Feds wanted.

John

	
		
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